Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

theodp writes "In The Civil Heretic, the NYT Magazine takes a look at how world-renowned scientist Freeman Dyson wound up opposing those who care most about global warming. Since coming out of the closet on global warming, Dyson has found himself described as 'a pompous twit,' 'a blowhard,' and 'a mad scientist.' He argues that climate change has become an obsession for 'a worldwide secular religion' known as environmentalism. Dyson has been particularly dismissive of Al Gore, calling him climate change's chief propagandist and accusing him of relying too heavily on computer-generated climate models and promoting 'lousy science' that's distracting attention from more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet."
Dyson himself wrote about the need for heretics in science not long ago.

Funny how since the beginning of history, groups of people have been claiming that the world is going to end. And it keeps not happening.

That holds true whatever we do. If mankind would turn this planet into a radioactive, toxic wasteland that's uninhabitable for humans or animals, we might just succeed in making ourselves extinct (like the dinosaurs). Given enough time, environmental conditions would change/improve and other lifeforms would rule the planet. 'Mother earth' will be fine regardless.

First off, no one has ever said that "global warming will mark the world's end". Its consequences are claimed to be very expensive to handle, involve lots of suffering, massive displacements of populations and annexed refugee problems (see recent Bangladesh flooding pattern).

Second, it is also funny how since the beginning of history, groups of people have been claiming that the world is just fine:

Don't worry, that horse is a sign of the gods! Break the wall to let it pass!

We've killed God around here so people need some fiction to replace it. The people around here, for instance, have global warming. (And when that's not enough, someone always starts up a conversation about superior programming styles or paradigms, which is far more religious than any tent revival I've ever seen.)

We've killed God around here so people need some fiction to replace it. The people around here, for instance, have global warming. (And when that's not enough, someone always starts up a conversation about superior programming styles or paradigms, which is far more religious than any tent revival I've ever seen.)

"A few feet of water"- can mean massive problems for those in the Pacific islands, Holland, London and other very low lying areas, or where they are already fighting to keep water out.

"a few degrees"- of the *average*. Says nothing about minima/maxima. But can be the difference between crops being viable or not. Can be the difference between methane laden permafrost staying frozen or not. Can mean much less Arctic sea ice, massively reducing the albedo/reflectivity provided by the ice cover (the last two we are actually seeing and are reinforcing GW).

"some rain pattern changes"- can mean that rainfall no longer falls over catchment areas (we're seeing this a lot in south-east Australia). Urban areas can easily become unviable in such circumstances (or alternatively resort to building massive desal plants like we are).

No one is predicting the "end of the world". But claiming that "a few degrees" has no effect just trumpets your ignorance.

Yet, there are currently inactive sand dunes in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, that reactivated several times a century, during sustained years of drought, in the last millennium. A sand dune reactivates when there are no roots from vegetation holding the sand in place. At which point, you pretty much get unpleasant sand storms and they leave clearly identifiable sand deposits behind.

The 1930's dustbowl could have been less extreme if the farming practices were better. However, now we are wastefully draining underground aquifers at a rate higher than the rate of recharge when there is not enough rain.

"However, a climate scientists doesn't need to be a stupid idiot in order to be wrong. Much of what we were taught in school concerning fundamentals of physics were "wrong" (e.g. 4 phases of matter; 3 spatial dimensions + 1 temporal dimension; proton is the smallest fundamental particle, etc)."

And guess what, they taught you RIGHT. Because all these facts are quite true, they just do not hold at some extreme conditions. In other words, all our theories are incomplete.

But good theories have predictive power within their domain. This is quite true about 3 stages of matter in 'common' life, for example.

"I personally don't care if it's true or not. If you really believe it, then there are solutions to solving it that don't require control of others. Let's go nuclear. Let's seed the oceans with iron (which also has the added side effect of increasing fish populations). Let's put up the solar shades. Let's move the earth to a wider orbit. Let's sequester the CO2 on Mars."

A lot of time in Science, you see people get aggressive towards dissenters of the popular opinion. Not aggressive in a good way, mind you. Heretics are GOOD because they strengthen or destroy good/bad science.

Unfortunately, he also happens to be wrong. He is a lone voice who has never published or conducted any research in Climatology; it is not his field. Those who insult and demean Dyson because of his views engage in abhorrent rhetoric. But the fact that some crazy people engage in abusive conduct does not make Professor Dyson's scientific views on this issue correct. It simply means that some people are assholes.

I'm sorry. There is a strong sentiment among slashdotters that Global Warming is bunk. Which shows just how ignorant the population at slashdot really is (never mind the general public).

What the hell does Al Gore have to do with climatology science? Nothing. The claims of climatologists have a large data set backing them now. It is far more than just a few computer models. That was the case in 1988. Today, there is over twenty years of accumulated hard data from ice cores, tree rings, and geological evidence showing change over time going back from thousands of years (tree ring) hundreds of thousands of years (ice core) to millions of years (geologic). This is not about simple computer mod

See, here's what people are getting at. Since you seem to be quick to lean on the idiot's crutch of using profanity and intimidation in lieu of intelligent discourse, I'll keep this as simple as possible.

Someone like, say, Michael Chrighton, or Freeman Dyson, is vilified for speaking out against AGW, especially given their lack of expertise in climatology.

Al Gore, however, is treated like a hero, despite having not only no experience in climatology, but his total lack of scientific expertise, because he espouses an opinion for which there is scientific consensus.

I'm sure this discussion will be flooded with global warming deniers, but if you actually read Dyson's opinions, he believes that global warming IS happening and we ARE to blame.

His only complaint with the science is that he feels that some of the computer models are fudged to make the results look worse than they might actually be.

Of course, his opinion on this seems utterly pointless to me. The man is a physicist, specializing in solid-state and quantum physics. He's no more qualified to analyze the science behind climate change than an electrical engineer is to build a bridge.

Particularly unfortunate then that the real data over the last decade has been showing across several indicators that the reality of warming is worse than the consensus model interpretations are predicting.

So he may be right that the models are inaccurate, but the general theory of the greenhouse effect is simple and correct, and is impacting us more than models guessed.

I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that it is impacting us worse than predicted, inasmuch as all the models I've seen showed significantly hotter temperatures by this time, some were expecting temperatures 5-10 degrees Celsius above what we have now. Have you seen the opposite? Here is an article talking about the limitations of computer models. [heartland.org] Here is a quote "Failure to account for local warming in cities led to some claims of dramatic warming in the 1980s and 1990s and, while adjustments are made today and the predictions of warming significantly reduced, some researchers believe the adjustments to be inadequate." This is consistent with what I have observed, as well.

While I will wholeheartedly agree that there are dogmatic idiots on both sides of this issue. And while I have no personal experience or knowledge on how, what and why things happen the way they do; I feel that those supporting doing nothing and ignoring any potential problem related to global warming and increased pollution are sticking their heads in the sand.

This isn't just about Environmental Nutters (though there are plenty of those); it's about responsible use of our resources and how to dispose of any waste generated. Continually, and increasingly, dumping chemicals and pumping exhaust from cars and factories into the atmosphere is not a positive thing. Our planet is big, and the problems related to increased pollution builds up over time; but it is absolutely clear in my mind that we can't keep doing what we do; there are simply too many people on the planet for it to magically absorb and breakdown all our waste (especially at the level we now generate and discard it).

Basically my point is that investing and researching more energy efficient ways is a good thing. Cutting down on consumption, and perhaps thinking a bit more about the stability and continuity of our ecosystem is a good thing.

Why is a person who is aware of and opposed to the large-scale destructive effects and massive alterations we are having on Earth's ecosystems and climate called a "nutter" (translation for US audience: "Crazy wackjob")

whereas

someone who is either ignorant of these problems, incapable of comprehending them and rationally analyzing them, or willfully denying our negative environmental effects in order to selfishly further a comfortable but unethical and unsustainable lifestyle,is presumeable called a normal sane member of society?

When it comes to "innocent until proven guilty" I am more in favour of a "sceptical until proven safe" in relation to Co2 or pollutants. And in a marginally capitalist society taxation is one of the tools available to regulate the level of such.

However, it should be noted, that for me it isn't as much a debate about climate (which I feel is affected by our waste); but about the build up of chemicals in the ecosystem. Many of these by-products of our industry and consumption are building up in water, air and most importantly (to me anyway) inside the human body. There is no doubt in my mind that the insufficient oversight of how industrial waste is handled is directly related to a range of health issues (like cancer and asthma). In short the accumulation of waste (industrial or otherwise) can have serious long-term negative consequences for us; simply saying "innocent until proven guilty" seems a bit simplistic to me.

He hasn't lost his mind, it just ain't particullary rooted in reality. Never was.

His solution should CO2 become a problem? Plant trees.

Forest around the world are being cut down. Where would we plant not just the trees to replace the ones we had last year but the ones we need extra? He doesn't so much deny that CO2 is a potential problem but seems to think planting lots of trees is the answer without apparenly ever having thought about how we are supposed to do that. Great minds are like that, they can think about immense and complex things we can't fathom, but can't quite grasp that the world can't just turn farmland into forests.

"Bio-tech, he writes in his book, Infinite in All Directions (1988), offers us the chance to imitate natures speed and flexibility, and he imagines the furniture and art that people will grow for themselves, the pet dinosaurs they will grow for their children, along with an idiosyncratic menagerie of genetically engineered cousins of the carbon-eating tree: termites to consume derelict automobiles, a potato capable of flourishing on the dry red surfaces of Mars, a collision-avoiding car."

A potato that grown on Mars. How nice. And how do we get there einstein? This is the kind of stuff we read about 20 years ago that would be with us in 20 years. It is flying cars. As well all know, they don't exist and probably never will. Why? Because they are practical.

Enviromentalists like Al Gore have to be practical. They are dealing with the very real effects of ricing sea levels NOW because you can't just build higher dikes when they have been destroyed by a storm. That is for instance the problems in Holland right now. As a country we are more then rich enough to raise the dikes but we need to do it NOW when the danger is years or even decades away because it will take years and even decades to finish and worse, if the predictions are to conservative, then those higher dikes might be needed sooner rather then later. You can't just plant a lot of trees if Dyson is wrong in 30 years. By then it will be to late.

That is the real problem with the supposed climate change. Say we follow Al Gore and there turns out not to be a problem. We would have wasted lots of money. Say we don't follow Al Gore and he is right, then we are in deep shit and it is to late to do anything about it. That is roughly the left and the right. The left want to be save and pay insurance now. The right wants to keep their money and their childeren be damned.

It is one thing to oppose an idea because you dislike it or you distrust it. There is no shortage of people running around claiming global warming to be total FUD.

However, there is a distinct shortage of people who are actually able to provide DATA to support their opposition to it. There is a significant difference between saying "I don't agree with that data" and "I have this data set that shows that data set is wrong". Global warming, by definition, is based on the global mean temperature of the earth. Plenty of people try to go for statements like "it snowed in Atlanta, so global warming must be BS"; though of course a statement like that ignores the global aspect of global warming.

As I don't have a NY Times account, I could not read the article provided. Can anyone tell us, did he actually provide meaningful data, or is he just criticizing the existing data?

He's not a climatologist. He has never done research on global warming. He has absolutely no data of his own. He is not an expert in this field. There is no reason, whatsoever, to listen to his opinions.

You might as well have your car mechanic perform surgery on you. After all, he's a professional, right? Therefore he must be qualified!

If your car mechanic tells you that you need to pay $790 to replace your gizrogyronmeter before you car implodes- when you brought the car in for an oil change- you don't have to be a mechanic to figure out you're being bullshitted and he probably has something else besides your best interests in mind.

If your surgeon is trying to sell you a $32,000 surgery on your feet because of hyspotoxiomosis of the anterior legamoid deltamint, and you came in for a mole removal, you don't have to be a PHD to see he just wants to fund his next vacation.

The fact is that AGW advocates demand 'solutions' involving control and expenditures that are entirely out of whack with their established credibility and perceived integrity.

Claiming "you can't understand it, it's too complex" in the face of the legitimate questions about the intent, integrity, and aims of Global Warming's high priests and salesmen is an evasion of the issue.

Repeat that 20 times a day, and one can remain objective. Modern science is based on that premise. This is beyond simply observing the natural world and deriving defensible predictive processes. It is admitting that even though these processes reliably predict all known verifiable phenomena, it could still be wrong.

This is what Kuhn was saying in the Structure of Scientific Revolution. Paradigms, as defined and used in the book, not in the modern sense corrupted by brain dead executives, are created by an elite group of scientists and these paradigms are mistaken for truth. It is a priori truth instead of a posteriori truth, but if we are actively searching for the ultimate nature of the divine, and not just the static representation, then truth is of no use.

History has shown that our static representations of the truth are always incomplete. In An Incomplete Guide to the Art of Discovery [cornell.edu] Oliver asserts that such incompleteness can be the basis of science. By finding the one verifiable phenomena that does not seem to fit perfectly, we can do science, either by showing an error in the measurement or interpretation of the phenomena or showing that the theory used to describe the phenomena is incomplete.

Which is to say we should really think about what we are talking about. For the most part when scientists argue about this stuff, they are fighting over old and new paradigms. It is often not about whether humans are impacting the climate, which is a conclusion, but often how we go about collecting data and developing the processes used to quantify those changes. Because the average person only cares about conclusions, they really don't see the subtle difference, and they just see a person who says that people they disagree are wrong. But it is not about right or wrong. It is not about really about whether the earth is 10,000 years old or 10,000,000,000. It is about whether we are being honest and developing ideas that reflect the observations we make, and not just what we are raised to believe.

Yes, one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century - a greater scientist than Freeman Dyson if one counts Nobel Prizes - and for years he kept banging on about Vitamin C as a cure for cancer. At one time, he even put his wife through the treatment. Vitamin C as a cure for cancer is baloney. Pauling wasn't a nutritionist.

If you dab your toe in a field outside your expertise, you're liable to get it bitten off. I wouldn't take the advice of a Doctor of medicine on writing PERL.

So, we should take the advice of a former politician who is now an environmentalist?

No, dumbass, you should take the advice of climatologists when it comes to the climate. If Al fucking Gore is not your preferred mechanism for finding out what climatologists say, then maybe you should try something else. I don't know, you could read a book or a journal or something. I hear scientists sometimes publish those.

Not exactly news. Ray Bradbury said all sorts of horrible things about Michael Moore and Fahrenheit 911 and was a huge supporter of the Bush wars. Issac Newton believed in alchemy and conducted all sorts of pseudo-scientific experiments in nonsense. Edison spent the last years of his life working on a spook phone to talk to the dead. Orson Scott Card is a Mormon and says bad things about gay people. George Lucas went from Beloved Creator of Star Wars to the Beard, Defiler of the Films.

People start saying and believing stupid shit when they pass their prime. They'll also mistake specialist expertise in one field for generalist expertise in everything.

He's a physicist. All he's done is show that non-specialists aren't necessarily as good as specialists at understanding the evidence.

I'm a biologist, and a good one if I do say so myself. I'm also convinced that faster than light travel (and the necessary new physics) is just waiting to be discovered. I'm sure the physics community will be immediately rethinking all their principles now.

I scanned through and didn't see it mentioned anywhere, but has anyone else heard about this problem?
The entire global warming problem is contingent on the concept that an increase in CO2 leads to higher temperatures, and this is based on the data compiled into the nice chart that Al Gore displays and comments, "They look like the belong together." Or something like that.
The problem is that CO2 amounts don't precede the increase in temperature, they actually lag behind the temperature changes by about 800 years. This can be explained by the idea that as the world heats up, the oceans heat as well. As the oceans heat, they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Of course this leaves the question, "Why does the planet heat up?" to be answered, and while the data is much more limited, there seems to be a very strong correlation between solar activity and global temperature.
Has anyone else come across this line of research? Or have anything that builds on or refutes this?

Let me give you an example. I have been living here in Europe since 1994. In the past five years here in Switzerland we have been getting Canadian seasons. Yes the summers are warmer as well, but the winters are colder and more snow.

The media hypes the summers because they are hotter, but does not hype on the winter. They say, "oh this can be expected and normal". That bothers me completely because anybody who researches climate knows Europe is being kept warm by the Atlantic conveyor. If the Atlantic conveyor turns around further south then as paradoxical as it sounds with increased global warming Europe gets colder! The UK had its first snowfall in October in 74 YEARS!

I remember a report in National Geographic about 5 years ago, and documentaries on TV that said Europe with increased global warming would become cold! The reason was the Atlantic conveyor. What was scary about this is that research has shown that the conveyor can shut down in a matter of a decade, but requires thousands upon thousands of years to restore itself.

I think it is happening! Though do you read about this in the media? NOOOOO because we all associate climate change with warming not change! It is much easier to sell deserts, no water, etc than people freezing their butts... Mentally we associate deserts = death, but cold as just being something we need to deal with...

Though look at the latitude of North Europe... It is freaken Labrador! Definitely not a place I want to live in... (due to its weather...)

I remember a report in National Geographic about 5 years ago, and documentaries on TV that said Europe with increased global warming would become cold!

We are having the same kind of weather and explanations for it here in America as well.

It goes like this:

When it's hot, it's because of global warming. When it's cold, it's because of global warming.

Let me tell you something that is 100% FACT! The climate is going to change. It always has, and it always will. No matter what happens, there will be people who ignore the fact that the climate has changed since the Earth began to cool and blame whatever changes they see now on the activities of man. It's the height of arrogance!

In the 1970s there was increasing awareness that estimates of global temperatures showed cooling since 1945. Of those scientific papers considering climate trends over the 21st century, only 10% inclined towards future cooling, while most papers predicted future warming

Near record is not a record. Cherry pick your quotes much? Next sentence in that article:"but 34 percent below the average measured for September since 1979"

Last year was a record. 9% back from that record compared to last year is still crappy when you're talking about a total 34% drop in total area since 1979. 4.5227 million square miles compared to 4.6 million square miles year to year change from 2007 to 2008, compared to over 6 million square miles three decades ago. The article could be a little less hyperbolic in it's title, but as for an agenda? Please.

In the seventies people were just begining to look at the problem. Also, back then aerosols emmitted by diesel engines and coal power plants were affecting climate change more than green house gases. People started to filter the particles when they realized that the particles tend to do things like cause cancer. Once the particles were blocked the earth started warming.

But anyway, what you are saying is that since the quick conclusion that people came up with when the study of climate change was in its infancy were wrong, all of the work and research that the worlds tops scientists did for the next 30+ years must also be wrong as well? I guess that argument makes sense if you don't think about it for more than 15 minutes.

The fact that climate change now has a great deal of non-scientists talking and writing about it basically means the following have been invoked:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. —Clarke's first law

When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion—the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right. —Asimov's corollary to Clarke's first law

Basically, this means that as more of the general public state that global warming is fact, it is more likely that the scientists who state that more study is needed are actually correct.

Nice troll, but the linked website doesn't agree with you. It talks of both a yearly cycle and a long term trend. It also says man made CFCs

contribute to the thinning of the ozone layer and allow larger quantities of harmful ultraviolet rays to reach the earth.

and some tasty graphs showing stuff like

NASA/NOAA satellite data showing the rise in stratospheric chlorine and corresponding decline in ozone layer thickness from 1979 to 1997. As stratospheric chlorine declined in response to enactment of the Montreal Protocol, the first stage of ozone recovery began.

IANACS, but I read the reason that the destruction and (after the Montreal Protocol [wikipedia.org]) current rebuilding of the ozone layer is so fast, is because not much of the CFC's were needed to alter it: radiation split a halogen atom off of them, forming free radicals, and these reacted with the O3 forming oxygen and the same free radical again, ready to do the same reaction again
(linky [wikipedia.org]).
The greenhouse effect of CO2, on the other hand, is related to how much CO2 there is in the atmosphere (I think the bulk of the effect is due to how CO2 strongly absorbs infrared light, as discovered in 1896 [wikipedia.org].
So, the effect of the CO2 is not as strong and you need more of it (which we do in fact).
However, what I think is not really taken into account much yet is possible positive and negative feedback effects that might become more noticeable at higher CO2 concentrations.
Freeman Dyson mentioned a negative feedback effect: that trees would be happy to absorb more CO2 (esp. his idea of genetically engineered CO2 eating trees). This might be a good mitigating idea, especially combined with "bio-charring" [wikipedia.org] them to put a bit of the sequestered carbon in the ground, out of the biological cycle.
<speculative_rant>
What worries me more is *positive* feedback effects. When the arctic cap melts, the sea underneath is probably darker than the white ice we have currently, so the albedo of the planet might change a little bit and reflect less of the sunlight. When or maybe if the methane clathrates at some places of the seabottom [wikipedia.org] burp up and the Siberian permafrost melts, large amounts of methane get in the atmosphere, and they'd either add to the greenhouse effect (stronger than an equivalent amount of CO2) or if there's enough methane maybe they'd even burn, warming the tundra up even more (and who knows how long it takes to put that out, if a large area is on fire fueled by deposits of long-frozen rotten stuff; e.g. coal mine fires can last long [blogspot.com])
</speculative_rant>

Don't forget the Ozone layer. We were all supposed to be long dead from skin cancer by now.

That makes as much sense as saying "Don't forget about leaded gasoline! We were all supposed to be dead from its emissions by now!"

What an amazing world we live in where:1) Experts predict disaster if a problem is ignored.2) Problem is solved rather than ignored.3) Disaster is averted.4) Mentally challenged "skeptics" believe the problem never existed in the first place.

I bet you think there was nothing to Y2K either, do you? Or think nothing has changed vis-a-vis smog since the 70s? Or that acid rain isn't a problem?

Hmmm. I wonder why I no longer buy it.

Because you have chosen to do so, and have quite effectively shielded yourself from seeing why you came to the exactly wrong conclusion.

Free-market advocates don't claim that "the economy" will fix itself. What they point out is that each individual, in response to a recession, begins to change his or her economic behavior: this includes investors, business owners, managers, skilled workers, unskilled workers, and individuals spending their money on consumer goods. In this way, people, working individually, redirect their economic activity away from bad investments to good investments. In each case, the actions of each exist within a larger context: namely, the actions of other individuals. This context coordinates economic activity; and as each individual seeks gains rather than losses, the end result will be a reorganization of economic activity that will end the recession.

In other words, the economy doesn't fix itself; the individuals, each working within their own sphere, fix the economy. This activity will still attempt go on whether the government does anything or not. What free-market advocates argue is that government can only hinder this activity and, in doing so, the recovery.

So, yes, unless government manages to completely destroy the economy, when things start improving, free-market advocates will claim that the recovery would have happened anyway; and it is completely consistent with their understanding of economics to do so. It will not have been government that fixed the economy, but those elements of the free-market that remained unhampered by government.

No. Deregulation is what we need more of. What we need less of -- in fact, none of -- is government favoring some businesses (notably, huge quasi-governmental businesses) over others, and government fiddling with the money supply by promoting so-called "easy money" policies.

We're in this mess because government created two huge entities, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mac, subsidized them with all kinds of tax breaks and anti-competitive advantages, fueled them with tons of inflationary credit, and then encouraged irresponsibility and certain, eventual loss by directing them to make bad loans to people with poor credit, all the while winking to investors all over the world that they never need worry about these banks failing because the US government would write any checks necessary to keep them solvent.

This was the beginning of the speculation in housing, which led to the secondary speculation in mortgage instruments. What hurt was not deregulation, but government favoritism and a policy of socializing losses.

Pro-capitalist is not the same as "pro-business," when pro-business has come to mean Washington gets in bed with big business and writes laws to favor their buddies. That's cronyism. Capitalism means government stays out of the economy completely.

The funny thing is that all of the issues you mention are actually worse today.

If you want to see smog, just take a look at all the people who have to wear breathing apparatus in many cities in the Far East. Ozone Layer? Look at the skin cancer rates in Australia. Acid Rain? Check the amount of aluminum in the drinking water in Toronto.

If there hadn't been efforts to combat those first three that started in earnest in the late 70's, there'd probably be three dead Great Lakes.

I'm surprised how many people believe that there is huge money in climate science. They hear about the billions that are being spent by the energy industry to try to convince people there's no harm in burning coal, petroleum and the hundreds of thousands that an environmental reasearcher could possibly receive in a grant and they think: "oh, it's the same thing". Dumb fucks.

It's about 2pm here in Chicago, and I've already read 8 comments from people with UIDs below 999999 who don't seem to know the difference between weather and climate.

2000's Global Warming? remains to be seen where this goes. Dyson seems to be a very bright guy, and he is doing good service to science by being skeptical. He's not denying the global warming issue outright, he's saying there is not enough data to conclude either way, and that he's doubtful.

The article states he was also against the Hubble telescope, arguing against the cost. There's no question that Hubble has advanced the science of astronomy greatly, it's his judgment that the money could have been spent on more important things, which is also his concern on expensive solutions to the global warming issue.

It doesn't mean that Dyson is standing up for the antienvironmentalists who don't want to be held responsible for their own actions.

I can make the argument for you. In 1988 when the global warming alarmism started moving along, it parralelled a push to forgive the third world debt that was largely caused by the oil crisis in the 1970's when OPEC decided to halt sales to the US over it's support for Israel who just kicked their asses.

Anyways, to stay on topic, in 1992, the global warming issue had been hijacked by the third world debt issues and the product of this can be seen by 1994 with the first attempts to draft the Kyoto accords. Of course this was all highly secretive and the US attempted to assemble and international climate panel to prove that global warming was the cause of man (more specifically, first world industrialized nations). The movement to forgive the third world debt started disapearing as the Kyoto accords started nearing release. In 1998 it had almost completely evaporated but by then, they had most of europe convinced it needed to sign on to Kyoto.

Now when we examine Kyoto we find several things. Of the 157 some countries that have signed on to it, only 36-37 (if you count the US) have caps on their Co2 production and a few of those caps were placed at rated higher then they were currently emitting. The numbers I posted may be off by a couple because I'm rambling from memory but they accurately represent the differences and anyone wanting to look can find it easily. Anyways, of the 37 or so countries, they placed limits to 1990 levels of Co2 production but claimed that all man made Co2 was in excess of the natural cycles and causing global warming. Now you can look at this and see right now that the goal of the Kyoto protocol wasn't necessarily to stop global warming because it only addressed a portion of the Co2 coming from some of the richest nations. The same nations BTW that owned the third world debt.

But is gets worse. Knowing, and yes, we have years of data to back this up but knowing that the population generally increases (*with the exception of Germany which is almost a negative population growth rate) you can see that it would be almost impossible to go back 10 years in carbon production while the needs of the people are constantly increasing. If you cut 10 people's carbon footprint by 30% over 20 years and during that 20 years, 3 more people are added to the group, their 70% contribution negates all savings from the 30%reduction. So there was a trigger built in to Kyoto that allowed member nations to offset their Co2 production by buying Carbon credits from the third world nations or to invest into those third world nations by moving industry there. This creates a revenue base that allows the third world nations to pay off their debt but it totally ignores the issue of Co2 production being bad for the environment. In short, it says if the rich industrialized nations want to stay comfortable, they have to pay more and invest in the poorer third world countries. Currently, most of Europe has chosen to use Chine and India to outsource their pollution and help meet their goals and it can be seen by their increased pollution emissions. China has or is about to pass the US in emissions and they have no caps whatsoever at all. The remaining 130 some countries who have started becoming major polluters too, are in line for this type of boost.

So even if global warming is real and it is the threat that it has been claimed, the political solutions have been hijacked from the start for reasons of money. And those reasons are huge. The sums of money involved are well above any oil companies profits or savings you will see from traditional energy compared to the more expensive alternative sources.

People have moved past that redistribution of wealth, greed has kicked in, and you have people like Al Gore selling carbon offsets to himself or people with the potential to make billions from outdated technology (yes, solar was invented in the 1800's, failed to be practical or cost effective in the 50's,60's,70's and 80's, Wind was actually replaced by coal in the 1920's though the 1950's) if they can

While I could't think less of his daughter (hi Estie!) I couldn't think more of Freeman. And if you look at the times he's been wrong before (oh, there aren't any) and think about what he says in terms of the context of actual life dynamics you'll see he's not wrong this time.

This doesn't mean we should be free to pollute but as pointed out in Jurassic Park "life finds a way".

Actually climatologists are pretty divided on the whole global warming issue -- they understand the details a whole lot better than the hordes of laymen or non-climatalogist scientists who keep shouting about it.

Not according to Al Gore. He claims there is no more debate and refuses to debate anyone on the subject. Of course, he's no expert on the subject at all. He merely summoned experts with whom he already had agreement. Current "Climate Change Theory" isn't science at all, it's politics. Those doing the real work are honestly debating the subject. Those seeking fame, power, recognition are using the "everybody knows" argument to silence dissent and reap the spoils. In the meantime the climate will change as it

I was simply pointing out that if you want to make a scientific point you can't use a consensus argument. Its a political one. There comes a time when the discussion dose become political, and then perhaps a consensus is relevant. But it is still not a scientific argument.

My bone to pick with the whole thing is that its *only* political now. Even when discussing with fellow scientists. Which is a shame really.

They keep propagating this nonsense with statements just like yours. "If I say it is so it is" is not fact it is vapor.

I am all for cleaning up the air and environment and have been for 30 years but this global warming nonsense is a huge power and wealth grab and nothing else.

"A United Nations document on "climate change" that will be distributed to a major environmental conclave next week envisions a huge reordering of the world economy, likely involving trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of

And in this case, if we follow the consensus and it turns out they're wrong, the consequences of that are what?

We've dramatically cleaned up our environment, achieved energy independence, freed ourselves from the political constraints of fossil fuels and massively bolstered our economy with a whole new class of green businesses.

Bolster our economy? Hardly. If we do the things many global warming proponents want, it will destroy our economy through insanely high taxes on current energy, likely resort in massive energy shortages (face it, solar / wind / hydro just don't produce the amount of power that coal / oil does), and cause technology to stagnate for who knows how long.

I always recycle, I drive a car that gets close to 40 mpg, don't waste electricity, etc but I'm not going to risk damning our society just because spreading fear is a great way to make money / gain political power and people realised that if they start shouting "the human race will die out / the planet will die if you don't do what we tell you to" that they'll have all the money and power they could ever imagine.

And in this case, if we follow the consensus and it turns out they're wrong, the consequences of that are what?

- Massive unemployment- greatly increased worldwide poverty- advances in technology not made or delayed by many years- thousands of brilliant scientists wasting their lives in pursuit of nonsense- government tyranny and possible permanent loss of freedom- extreme drops in living standards

FauxPasIII... once again, you prove how much closer the green movement is to religion than to science.

You basically have paraphrased "Pascal's Wager". Which is basically "If you believe in God and are wrong, you loose nothing (and maybe gain some things) -- but if you DO NOT believe in God and are incorrect, fire and pain, etc... Therefore being an atheist is illogical".

"if we follow the consensus and it turns out they're wrong, the consequences of that are what?"- The lack of study on real issues, the lack of honest and directness can decay science as a whole. We could have global cooling, or some other major issue going on -- that we choose to overlook because of our obsession with follow a consensus rather than fact. I believe there are many dangers in this.

" achieved energy independence,"- Maybe, with a massive investment in nuclear power, but I think if you look at the fundamentals of most of the other energy streams, you will be sadly disappointed. Look into how much energy it takes to MAKE a solar cell, look at how much energy it takes to TRANSMIT wind power... etc, etc.

"freed ourselves from the political constraints of fossil fuels"- I assume this is a reference to 'no blood for oil' and similar chants. I will just gloss over it, as it is more politics.

"and massively bolstered our economy with a whole new class of green businesses."- This isn't a fact, it isn't even a logical follow-on, this is hope. You "hope" a green economy will explode creating new jobs. Read some of the old clippings about nuclear power and you will do the time warp again! My point is, this is blind hope / faith -- like believing in a fancy place in the clouds waiting for you... it isn't based on any facts.

"Explain again why you're so against this?"- Because, I want science to be driven by truth... even when that truth is unpopular, even when that truth is frustrating, even when that truth goes AGAINST political causes. I want science to be unburdened by such things.

I have to agree with you (and Dyson). Al Gore looses his argument as soon as he says that a concensus has been reached. Science simply doesn't work that way! Then he follows up with "the discussions are over." No they are not. Real science is a process of ALWAYS questioning your theories and assumptions and going where the evidence leads.

There is some evidence that there is some heating. The evidence that it is caused by CO2 or is man-made is tenuous at best! Depending on computer models that are not his

I have to agree with you (and Dyson). Al Gore looses his argument as soon as he says that a concensus has been reached.

You lost your argument when you failed to correctly distinguish between "loses" and "looses", and also failed to spell "consensus" correctly. Perhaps you should use Firefox, which underlines such errors so that you don't look like a total asshat. (It also underlined asshat, but I'm sure I know how to spell that.)

There is some evidence that there is some heating.

There is overwhelming evidence that the average global temperature is rising.

The evidence that it is caused by CO2 or is man-made is tenuous at best!

CO2 is a known greenhouse gas. We emit more than ten times the CO2 emitted by volcanoes on average, and nobody denies tha

Who mods this stuff up as informative? This seems a lot closer to flambait to me. It mentions (but doesn't cite) what seems to be a fictitious quote from Gore and makes reference to "lord and master Barrack". If that isn't inflammatory, what is it? The whole thing is misinformation and ad hominem/argumentum ad verecundiam.

Bad studies don't support the opposite case. There was a flawed study on global warming (assuming one agrees with such an assessment) somehow makes all the other studies on the subject les

Any time someone has a dissenting opinion against a liberal the liberal only seems capable of defending their argument with insults and threats.

And how is this different from how a "conservative" deals with the same situation? There are dogmatic believers on both sides (and honestly there are far far more sides than just Liberal/Conservative). People that believe you have to chose between Liberal or Conservative are already taking a step into a world of Us Vs Them that instils in their followers a world view that scares me; and leaves many of them incapable of dealing with Reality in a reasonable and pragmatic manner.

First off I want to say Freeman Dyson is a brilliant physcist and we should all be grateful for his work in physics, he is not however a climate scientist, climate scientists have a rather different view of the whole thing:

"IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].

Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).

The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."

So do some research about the mainstream of climatology before jumping on the Dyson bandwagon.

And yes Al Gore is often an exaggerated propagandist and he isNOT helpful in this debate, that doesn't however mean that there isn't real climate science out there pointing to the anthropogenic origin of observed climate change.

I wish I had mod points to mod you up. I don't. So instead I'll quote this guy [discovermagazine.com]:

In Dawidoff's piece, Dyson comes off as a classic contrarian, sounding off late in life. A journalist with a scientific background would know how important it is to take such people with a grain of salt-no matter how distinguished their scientific work may be in other areas. Dawidoff, though, just goes for it-for 8,000 words of it. He writes foolish things like this: "[Dyson's] dissension from the orthodoxy of global warming is significant because of his stature and his devotion to the integrity of science." Um, no, it isn't. It isn't significant at all. Dyson's fame and authority don't buy him any special deference in this area; science does not work that way.

Another non-climate-scientist who thinks nearly all of the climate scientists are wrong about the climate.

You're off there. In fact, in the article you linked to [salon.com] on the very same page, you see that he has published at least one paper in the field. Sure, his main field is physics, but how long does it actually take to become an expert in a field? By the time you're his age, you've had enough time to expand into a lot of areas.

Dyson seems well aware that the climate is, in fact, warming.

Did you actually spend any time figuring out what he does claim? Once again, in the first paragraph of the article you linked to, Dyson states his opinion "[Global warming] is a real problem, but it's nothing like as serious as people are led to believe. The idea that global warming is the most important problem facing the world is total nonsense and is doing a lot of harm."

Dyson's wrong to repeat the "global cooling" myth

He was actually there in the late 60s. I had a textbook that talked about global cooling, and gave possible solutions. Indeed, there is no reason to doubt that eventually we will enter into another ice age. The paper linked to in your link [allenpress.com] basically outlines the path scientists made from thinking in terms of ice ages, solar forcing, etc. to becoming aware of the consequences of human interaction on the global climate. It shows convincingly that in those days no one was worried about immediately entering into an ice age. However, it doesn't contradict, and in fact confirms, that there was a general consensus that we would eventually enter another ice age.

Basically you're a troll who didn't even read your own articles. And a slashdot editor. Wow, should that be a surprise?

I was there in the 70s, and I remember Global Cooling as well. The revisionist claims that there was no such panic are part of my reason for being extremely distrustful of the global warming cabal..err, "consensus".

I've read a number of "I was there! I remember the panic!" posts over the years on slashdot, and yet I've still never seen any of them who were able to point to any significant body of actual scientific research that supports it. Media distortion of scientific research is easy to find. Can you point to actual scientists (preferably peer-reviewed) who were suggesting this was a serious danger?

Since the claim is evidently that there was a "panic" about the whole thing, realistically to support it you'd need a fairly broad citation list, at least several papers (or a couple papers that cite several others)... but I'd be interested to see if there was more than one, or even one paper, that both (1) shows evidence that global temperatures are cooling, and (2) makes any kind of prediction that this trend will continue in such a way as to pose a serious danger (not necessarily an absolute doomsday prediction, a serious suggestion would suffice, but it should be a serious suggestion and not just "we should probably study this some more to see if..." -- otherwise it in no way compares to the level of widespread confidence among climatologists today on global warming).

Pointing to old media articles is not a substitute for this kind of evidence, nor is "I was there and I remember" good enough unless there is some additional evidence that what you "remember" is scientific consensus and not media alarmism.

FACT: Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures. Average ground station readings do show a mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8C over the last 100 years, which is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas ("heat islands"), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas ("land use effects").

There has been no catastrophic warming recorded.

MYTH 2: The "hockey stick" graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature decrease for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.

FACT: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to 1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average global temperature" has been rising at the low steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 Ãff" 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare.

The "hockey stick", a poster boy of both the UN's IPCC and Canada's Environment Department, ignores historical recorded climatic swings, and has now also been proven to be flawed and statistically unreliable as well. It is a computer construct and a faulty one at that.

MYTH 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.

FACT: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased. The RATE of growth during this period has also increased from about 0.2% per year to the present rate of about 0.4% per year,which growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years. However, there is no proof that CO2 is the main driver of global warming. As measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically through solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming surface layers of the earth's oceans expel more CO2 as a result.

MYTH 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.

FACT: Greenhouse gases form about 3% of the atmosphere by volume. They consist of varying amounts, (about 97%) of water vapour and clouds, with the remainder being gases like CO2, CH4, Ozone and N2O, of which carbon dioxide is the largest amount. Hence, CO2 constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. While the minor gases are more effective as "greenhouse agents" than water vapor and clouds, the latter are overwhelming the effect by their sheer volume and Ãff" in the end Ãff" are thought to be responsible for 60% of the "Greenhouse effect".

Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.

FACT: The computer models assume that CO2 is the primary climate driver, and that the Sun has an insignificant effect on climate. You cannot use the output of a model to verify or prove its initial assumption - that is circular reasoning and is illogical. Computer models can be made to roughly match the 20th century temperature rise by adjusting many input parameters and using strong positive feedbacks. They